The Old Deep and Dark (26 page)

“You think he'll arrest her?”

“I do,” said her dad, leaning back, making a bridge of his fingers. “His problem is that he doesn't have any hard evidence. No weapon. No witnesses. No forensics. If Kit hadn't given him that gift of mass fabrications, he'd have nothing at all.”

“So you're saying what he has is circumstantial.”

He nodded.

“But can't prosecutors win circumstantial cases?”

Sighing, he replied, “Yeah, they can.”

“Look, I may have some information that will complicate DePetro's investigation. Ours, too, unfortunately.”

He turned his full attention on her.

She reminded him of the skeleton that she and Cordelia had found behind a wall in the basement of the theater, and then continued on from there. Kit's personal connection to the first two. The names of the men and one woman, and when they went missing. The manner of all three deaths—a gunshot to the forehead. She didn't have to connect the final dot. Her father saw it immediately.

“Jordan was murdered in exactly the same way. Do you have any other information on the third victim? The one the police found last night.”

“Nothing beyond what I just told you.”

He looked away, digesting the information. “What are we dealing with? A thirty-year-old vendetta? A psychopath? Jealousy? Twisted justice? Listen, find out everything you can on that third victim and get back to me. It's not the break in the case I was hoping for, but if nothing else, you're right. It will throw a major spanner into the case DePetro is building.”

“If it does turn out that it's all connected, it lets Booker and Chloe off the hook. At least that's something.” She figured with everything that had landed on the Deere kids recently, they could use a break.

Her father grabbed his phone and punched in a number. “DePetro needs to gather ballistics on all the gunshots. If it turns out—” He stopped, listened. “Hi. This is Raymond Lawless. I need to speak with Neil DePetro. Tell him it's urgent.”

Jane had already come to the same conclusion. If the gun used to kill the three victims in the theater matched the one used on Jordan, DePetro's case had just metastasized into a full-blown search for a serial killer.

 

29

The
mystery
of Erin O'Brian had come to take precedence over Booker's infatuation—if that's what it was—with her. In the last day, he'd discovered some facts about her personal life that had left him with even more questions. Why was she in town on his father's dime? Why had she stood outside a day care playground, all her attention focused on one little girl?

At seven
P.M.
that night, Booker entered the Rhineland Grill and waited in the bar until Erin joined him. “You look astonishing,” he said, taking in her sleek black dress and sexy makeup. He wondered how she thought the evening would end. Probably the same way he did, though he doubted it would ever come to pass because of the questions he intended to ask.

Over dinner, he kept the conversation light. It might be the last time they sat like this, enjoying each other's company, feeling the electricity of their attraction clear to the soles of their feet. When she reached across the table and touched his hand right after they'd ordered a dessert to share, he knew if he didn't approach the subject soon, he never would.

“I got a call last night from a friend. We roomed together when we were in college. Griffin Turner? He's been working at the Seattle Repertory Theatre for the last few years.” He already knew the answer to his first question.

“Sure, I know Griffin,” said Erin, her gaze roaming the room. “Not well, but we've been at a few cast parties together.”

“Griffin mentioned that you had a child. A little boy.”

Her unblinking eyes held his.

“You never mentioned him. Actually, you told me you didn't have any children.”

Her lips drew together as she examined her wineglass.

“What's his name?”

“Damian.”

“How old is he? What's he like? I think it's really cool that you have a kid.”

Looking away, she said, “He died. Two years ago. A year later my marriage came apart.”

“Oh, God.” He'd had no idea. Griffin had either conveniently left that part out or he didn't know. “I should never have brought it up. It's none of my business. God, I'm an asshole. I'm
such
an asshole.”

“It's not your fault,” said Erin, draining the wine from her glass. “It was an accident. He was seven years, four months and nine days old. My amazing, beautiful boy.” Her breath caught in her throat. “You … you had to know him to understand how special he was.”

“Erin,” he said, leaning toward her. Did he really want to push this, knowing what he now knew? “I saw you yesterday. At that day care center.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“You were watching a little girl.”

“You followed me?”

“I needed answers. I know you talked to my father recently, more than once. That he paid for you to stay here. Why did he do that? What were you talking to him about? I'm sorry about your boy, truly I am, but my father is gone, too, and, I mean, I know you had nothing to do with that—” The words stopped him. He did know that, didn't he? Forging on, he continued, “What I don't get is what was going on between you two.” He was making a mess of things, not expressing himself well at all.

Erin watched him steadily, her fingers kneading her napkin. “I can't believe you followed me.”

He lowered his head. “I suppose you hate me now. I'm an untrustworthy SOB. An obnoxiously intrusive creep. A controlling scumbag.”

“You sure love to criticize yourself,” she said softly.

“Might as well use my extensive vocabulary of abuse on myself.”

Silence followed his comment, brief, but undeniably charged.

“If you really want to know, I'll tell you. But it's not easy for me to talk about, so I'll make it short.”

He nodded as he pushed his half-full glass of wine across to her.

“My husband wanted something good to come from Damian's death. I didn't really think that was possible, but I went along with his wishes. We signed an agreement to donate our son's organs. We knew his heart would go to a child who was desperately in need of a heart transplant. We buried Damian and eleven months later, Tony filed for divorce. I was having a very hard time of it back then. Couldn't write. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat.” She reached out with a shaky hand and pulled Booker's wineglass closer. “I don't blame Tony for leaving me. We weren't going to make it, not after what had happened. But it was just one more blow, you know?”

“You don't need to do this,” said Booker.

“No, I want to tell you. Maybe it explains why I am the way I am. What happened to the girl you once knew. Last June, I began to wonder about the child who'd been given Damian's heart. I needed to find him—or, as it turns out, her. I had to see her, be near her. It didn't take long for it to turn into an obsession. The problem is, you can't just call up your doctors and demand to know what became of your child's donated heart. It's not something you're ever supposed to find out. Even so, I began to wonder if there wasn't some way. That's when I first contacted your father. He was the only man I knew who had virtually unlimited financial resources and who might take pity on me and offer his help.

“Booker, your dad was the most incredible man. He'd always been warm and kind back in Nashville, when I was friends with Chloe, but when I explained what had happened, what I needed, he understood instantly. He said he couldn't imagine what he would have done if he'd lost you or Chloe. He promised he'd see what he could do.

“I thought, when I didn't hear back from him within the first month, that he'd forgotten. I didn't blame him. There was no reason he needed to indulge the whims of an old friend of his daughter's. I kept searching, on my end, to find out as much as I could, but at every turn, doors refused to open. And then, three weeks ago, your father called to say his investigator had found the child. What was so odd was that the girl lived in Minneapolis. When she'd received the heart transplant, two years ago, the parents had been living in Houston. The surgery was done at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. While they were in Minnesota—I guess it was several months—the father was offered a job. It meant the family would have to move to the Twin Cities. He eventually took the position and the family relocated.

“Your father and I talked on the phone several times after that. He eventually sent me a plane ticket and made reservations for me at the Heidelberg Club. He said he was here all the time, so it would be easy for us to meet.”

“Did you,” asked Booker, “meet?”

“We had two long lunches and one dinner. For the first time since I'd lost my son, I really let all my feelings come out. He was a wonderful listener. Since I've been here, I've driven into Minneapolis four times. Each time I've been able to stand near the little girl for at least half an hour.”

“Do you want to meet her?”

She shook her head. “Just seeing her play with the other children, watching her smile, seeing the delight in her eyes when a bird lands on the ground near her … it's enough. I don't claim to understand it, but she's so much like Damian. She even looks like him. To think that a part of my boy is still alive, that his heart is still beating in the here and now … it means the world to me. It feels … like maybe the worst is over and I'm beginning to heal.” Looking up at Booker she said, “You can see why I took the news of your father's death so hard. I'd really come to love that man. His loss, it was huge.”

Ironically, Booker's urge to comfort her for her loss threw his own barely felt sense of loss into stark relief, and that disconnect brought him up cold. His first thought was that he truly was a rotten son. That also happened to be his second and third thought. The weird thing was, he was learning more—and thinking more—about his dad now that he was gone than he ever had while he was alive. For the first time, he was beginning to sense a void opening up inside of him, an urge to go to his father and hash things out, ask questions, make amends. The fact that that was no longer possible nearly dissolved him. “I'm so sorry,” he said. “For all of it.”

“Booker,” said Erin. “You have to listen to me. I thought, when it came to being hard on myself, to personal vilification, I was world class. But you're even better at it than I am.”

“How can you be hard on yourself?” he said earnestly. “You're incredible.”

In spite of the bleak conversation they'd been engaged in, Erin couldn't seem to help herself. She smiled. “We're a real pair, aren't we. I think I'm a waste of space and you think I'm wonderful. You think you're worthless, and I think you're—”

“What?”

“One of the nicest guys I've ever met.”

Nice, he thought. The same thing his sister had called him. It wasn't wicked cool, edgy, or sexy bad, but he could work with it. “So what do we do now?”

“Eat our dessert.”

“And after that?”

“You need an outline?”

“Just a thumbnail sketch.”

“Well,” she said, finishing off the wine, “I think we'll start by taking the elevator up to the third floor. And then we'll walk down the hall to my room, where you'll kiss me good night.”

“And then?”

“That's as far as my working draft goes.”

“So, once we're on our own, it's okay to improvise?”

She grinned. “I would expect nothing less from the man who's going to help stage my play next spring.”

“Am I?”

“I live in Seattle. You live in New York. Getting together in February in the middle of the country seems like a good compromise.”

“If you think I'm waiting until next February to see you again—”

The waiter arrived with the crème brûlée and set it in the center of the table. After producing two spoons, he said, “Can I get you anything else?”

“The check,” said Booker.

 

30

Ducking under the overhang, Jane stood outside Avi's building and buzzed her apartment. The rain had begun less than an hour ago, but was already starting to come down as sleet. A miserable night was in store for anyone who had to be out. Checking her watch, she turned back to her car and saw that Mouse had hopped into the backseat. He was staring out the side window, nose pressed to the glass.

“Yes?” came Avi's voice.

“It's me,” said Jane.

The lock clicked open and Jane flew inside. Once up on second, she was about to knock on Avi's door when it opened and the most wonderful aroma wafted out.

“Wow, what do you have in the oven?” asked Jane.

Avi stepped back and allowed Jane to enter. No hug. No kiss. Not even a welcoming smile. “On my way back from the airport, I figured I better stop off and buy some food. I didn't have anything here. I also didn't have much energy, so I bought a pot roast, some onions and carrots and potatoes and shoved it in the oven when I got home.”

Even without the hug and kiss, Jane was glad to be somewhere warm and dry, and even more glad that Avi was back home. “You got your hair cut.” It was shorter than normal—parted on the right side. Avi pushed the androgynous boy look about as far as it could go. She was tall and thin, and liked to wear boy clothes with clunky, colorful athletic shoes. When she wasn't bartending, she wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses. Earrings and sultry makeup cast against type and made the look work.

“The flight was crap,” she said, stepping over to the couch and fluffing a throw pillow. “I hate flying, if I haven't said that before. Let me take your coat.”

“Mouse is out in the car,” said Jane, hesitating by the doorway. “I dropped Gimlet at the groomer. I have to pick her up by nine.”